Veil
by Ivydoll
Summary: MerryPippin. Implied SamFrodo. The veil is so vague as to be maddening. Melancholy, grief, and distress have followed Merry and Pip home to the shire, where they must reach catharsis.


**(KAI)** A story which began and had to be finished, regardless of my need to sleep.  
Because I love Pippin. And because Sam and Frodo should be; I'd always toyed with the idea Sam might give in and follow, anyway, the cutey.  
Best regards wading through the rambling, then; enjoy. 

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**Veil**

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"Listen very carefully," he was pressing his forehead to mine, as though he could will his thoughts into me, "No matter how alone you may feel, I will always be there to take care of you."

"You're only saying that," I must not want him to let go, for as much as I'm gripping his hands where they rest on my shoulders.

"Exactly as you're saying you feel alone."

His voice is all I can hear, and I can feel the confusion draw over me like a veil, "Merry?"

And he's holding me. All the way to his chest, and the smell of gardening is on him like earth and aliveness.

"You hush," and he sounds almost angry but he won't let me up, "Don't get drunk on me and say such things."

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't be."

And the veil is just that much harder to pierce.

"Merry..." So much time has past, here outside my door, cracked and letting the light through.

"Pippin, don't talk."

"I miss Sam, and Frodo, and I miss Legolas and Aragorn, and I miss Gimli, and- and Gandalf, and I miss--"

"What did I tell you, you fool?" He's rattling me a bit and still won't let me go.

"But... don't you miss them, too?" I'm going to die, just grasping his worn overcoat and shivering like it were colder than it is.

"Every day, you great drunken fool," he says it into my hair, and I feel the hot air he's breathed against me. "I think about them _every_ day, especially since Sam left."

"I miss him..."

"So you've said," and he's disentangling me, and maybe it really is that cold. "Up to bed with you."

The stairs are three and four times too many, and I think I'm crying or still very drunk because they oughtn't be so blurry and at least Merry is holding me still, because how else would I be managing?

"Now why-" he grumbles when I've slipped again (or maybe I've tripped or fallen down altogether). "Now why did you go and get so sloshed?"

It's no celebration night, after all. Just today, like yesterday, and yesterday before that, and God, tomorrow, too.

"I'm sorry, Merry- I can-" and I would say more, but the world is tilting to the left and that's no good, but Merry catched me to him, and his heartbeat hits me so hard.

"Fool," he says it so hopelessly.

"Dammit," I'm gripping onto him as hard as I can, my nails are biting through his clothes and digging into my palms. "_Dammit_," this time because I know I'm crying now, there's no other reason for it. Hot, wet tears, fogging everything up, and making shake me like a big, dumb kid.

"Don't... not again," his voice is part of the veil, falling away even as we hold on to one another. Those are his hands across my back, squeezing too tight, and maybe keeping me together and maybe keeping him together as the world sinks upward. But we're on the floor, and the world has resolved itself, though not so well, because Merry is crying on my shoulder and that's not how the world is _supposed_ to be.

And the world isn't supposed to hurt our loved ones and take them away and make it so hard just to keep waking up in the mornings. And the mornings are so beautiful, so rich and clean and it's just not how the world is _supposed_ to be- not after everything we've been through and some of these words aren't mine, but they're tumbling out of Merry and they feel like mine.

"Merry, Merry," I'm touching his hair, and his shoulders and wherever I can get to pressed so close to him, "Merry, don't cry... It's... It's not so bad, I'm _sorry_..."

"Shush," he weeps into me, clutching, almost desperate, and that veil is maybe not so thick. Even if I'm confused, or don't understand, it seems clear to him. "I'm sorry you miss them, Pippin, I miss them, too."

"Do you think they're okay?"

And I mostly mean Frodo and I mostly mean Sam, because they were in our life before the rest and I love them all, but _Sam left, he left and he's not coming back._

"I think they're beautiful," he whispers around a sob that sounds like every day we've kept it inside.

"Me, too," and I'm resting my head on his shoulder as he cries into mine, great heaving wretchedness that we are, and soon enough he's struggling, even though it's me, it's _me_, that should be so weakened. It's _always_ been me, and it's him whose going to run away if I don't-- if I don't--

"H-Help me to bed," I rub my eyes even as he's half-rising, holding on to me around the middle and picking us up, "it'll be all right... right?"

He stands with me on the landing, moonglow on his splotchy face and wheat colored hair all mangled from where I've put my hands, but he doesn't say anything, even as I'm hugging him around the neck, veil and all.

"Everything will be all right..." I'm saying it to myself because he can't. I'm saying it to him because Sam and Frodo can't. I'm saying it to us because I _have to_, because the jigsaw is all broke up from when we left and now that we're back I can't put it together again.

Hesitantly, as though he is remembering something, he says by my ear, tense in my arms but relaxing maybe just a little bit, "Yes. Yes, Pip."

His arm is around my waist and we're walking, maybe stumbling, to my room; to the rumpled bed where I've lain _so many nights_, just unable to sleep. There's fire and death, and misery behind my eyes, and I wonder if that desolation in his brown eyes is the same, if it's changed him inside, too.

I know he must have meant to tuck me in, to hug me, to leave, but I'm grabbing his lapels and I'm shaking the coat off of him, "Just stay," and he's not fighting me.

"Pippin..."

But he's not fighting me, he's _not_.

"Just stay, please, just _stay_."

A spark seems to hit him in the eyes, "Gods, Pippin, I'm not leaving-- I'm not going anywhere. I can't... not like Sam.. not when I've got to..."

I'm kicking the blankets around, even though it's cold and I'll want them against the despair that welling up in my best friend in the entire world who pierces veils far better than I ever could; and I'm crying for him, for me, for us, for _them_.

"Don't, Merry, I'm sorry for saying that, I didn't mean to upset you... Here, just lay with me, all right?" And he doesn't fight me, though he might have, once.

He pulls the covers over us, because he's still practical, or because he really does think he still has to take care of me, though the idea doesn't hurt my feelings at all, but leaves me kind of fuzzy and nervous. He fluffs the pillow and we're laying with our legs all tangled up, maybe so neither of us can get away, and for the first time in so long I'm _sleepy_, I'm not just exhausted, _I could sleep_.

It's enough to make me sniffle like a child. "I _missed_ you, _so much_, Merry..."

And he doesn't stop me getting closer, and I have to be closer, because all the warmth in the world is coming from Merry and that seems like a corner of the veil even though I'm not so drunk about it anymore. And I'm so tired I could die in his arms, and I'm bleary, I'm scratched-up inside, I'm hoarse, and-

"You're beautiful," he seems almost to be laughing, but there are tears that I can feel when he presses his cheek to mine. "You great big fool."

"I didn't mean to upset you... I just missed you _so much_," I can't help my heartbeat when it flutters inside like a butterfly, because his nose is so close to mine I can smell his breath, all herbed and earthy.

"Did you think... Did you really think I was leaving?"

My voice warbles, "No..."

"No?"

"You were so busy..."

"I... I was trying so hard to live, Pippin; why didn't you come talk to me?"

It hurts too much to bear, so much my heart is skipping and weeping and I can't be close enough to him and I can't get far enough away and my face is all hot, "I thought you'd forgotten me, I don't know..."

"Not when I've got to take care of you. Sam left to take care of Frodo, right?"

I nod; I must be nodding, because his heartbeat seems to much closer.

"I didn't mean to hurt you, Pip," his voice is echoing in my head, so warm I can't help it. I'm yawning and I'm grasping him as close as he'll go to me.

"Just stay," I'm whispering and he's leaning in close, "Just stay and I won't be alone."

"All right," he says and he squeezes me, and it's because he _knows_, he knows _everything_, and he feels it the same way I do, because it's a hurt that's between us like fire and water and never forgetting.

And his lips meet mine somewhere in the middle, where it's okay, and Sam and Frodo are okay, and Aragorn, and Legolas, and Gimli, and Gandalf. And Boromir, because I miss him terribly, too.

But I'm not really alone. They're all gone away but Merry is here, and he's kissing me like sunshine and richness and cleansing and never forgetting.

"I love you, I love you."

"I love you, too," on and on and on into the veil, settled around us, un-pierce-able.


End file.
